With the Central Administration taking broadsides from all directions over corruption and ideologically tainted laws, it’s now decided to make things worse for itself.

Only three weeks after the Supreme Courts’ annulling of a governmental pardon for a ‘kamikaze’ driver who had been sentence to 13 years’ imprisonment for deliberately driving the wrong way down a motorway resulting in the death of another driver, the Rajoy Administration has seen fit to issue a pardon for a driver who had deliberately run down two pedestrians.

The Minister for Justice, Alberto Ruiz Gallardón is veritably staggering from one controversy to the next. Galladón, tagged as a moderate before taking up the post of Minister for Justice, has attracted scathing criticism from home and abroad over his proposed abortion law, which will effectively put Spain completely out of step with the rest of Europe as far as abortion goes.

And now this: a government pardon for a driver who ran over two pedestrians with the clear intention of killing them, leaving them both badly injured.

The driver in question, Colombian, Sixto Mario Arango Durango, received his pardon from the pen of Sr. Gallardón on the 29th of November. The Minister had just weeks previously (7th November) signed a partial pardon for the dubbed, ‘Kamikazi,’ reducing his sentence from 14 to eight years.

In the case of the second pardon, Durango had been found guilty on two counts of attempted murder receiving seven years’ imprisonment for each. The judge considered it proven that in the early hours of the 26th of August, 2001, the offender man had attempted to murder his two victims outside a bar in Madrid.

Durango had been waiting for them in his car when they came out onto the street, at which point he revved the car and ran at them, driving over both of them on the pavement. The only reason that they survived was thanks to the prompt medical attention that they received.

Durango appealed against the sentence before the Supreme Court, arguing that it had all been an accident. The Supreme court rejected his appeal. They considered that there was little indication that it had been an accident as there had been no skid marks from braking and the police report confirmed that from moving off to colliding with the victims, the car had travelled in a completely straight line.

The Minister justifies the pardon saying that it came as fruit of a request from the prison authorities, citing law-code article 206. However such consideration envisaged in article 206 is only applicable when the prisoner’s behaviour can be described as “extraordinary” and over many years.

Finally and with respect to the photo accompanying this article, Gallardón’s son works in the law firm that provided the defence for the Kamikazi driver who received the partial pardon…

(News: Spain)